Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Return of Frankenstein 2?

On 16th April Yanukovych is to visit Paris. The following day his is due to appear before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe [PACE] in Strasbourg, where, no doubt, he will grumble about what a terrible president Yushchenko is. PACE's assessment of Ukraine's unsatisfactory progress since last March's VR elections can be read here. I don't think that he will gain much support in Strasbourg in has attempt to defy the president's ukaz dismissing the VR.

Last year's VR elections, conducted by the Central Electoral Commision of Ukraine, was, according to a recent declaration by PM Yanukovych, "characterized by democratic nature and fairness which was recognized world-wide." So why has the VR dismissed the CEC managment, replacing its current chairman with Serhiy Kivalov [see photo] - its former chairman and one of the primary election fraudsters of the OR presidential campaign?Kivalov's dismissal was part of a complex deal, enabling a repeat second round of the 2004 presidential elections to take place during the OR. The deal included a reduction of presidential powers that came into force at the beginning of 2006. If Kivalov has now been reinstated, then the whole package agreed in December 2004 between Yushchenko, Yanukovych and Kuchma could in theory untangle. But if PoR insist that no repeat elections are to take place why bother altering the set-up in the CEC anyway? Maybe the PACE report has some truth in it.

CEC members have mounted a legal challenge to annul the VR's ruling to dismiss them; and anyhow, Kivalov has not yet made up his mind whether to take up his proposed new position as head of the CEC and give up his PoR VR deputy status [and the legal immunity it provides.] Yanukovych, Moroz and others must has spent at least 2 minutes in a VR corridor discussing this matter last night.

Both Viktors Yu and Ya met for a total of four and a half hours today..

1 comment:

Regarding Kivalov - he will be the hatchet man by which PoR means to make sure that they win more than 25% of the vote which they are receiving in surveys. 1/4 of the vote is not good enough and they do not want to have to enter into another coalition. Esp. as the Socialists and Communists will not get the same numbers they got back in March 2006. And most esp. they want to make sure that BYuT's numbers are low.

Unfortunately control of the Min. of Internal Affairs is under Tsushko and PoR.